Sen. Schumer speaks at the Crypto4Harris event

A screenshot of Sen. Schumer speaking at the Crypto4Harris event

Sen. Schumer vows to pass crypto legislation in 2024 as the industry courts VP Harris

The Crypto4Harris event argued Democrats were crypto’s best bet.

8/15/24 3:32PM

The crypto industry wants to make one thing clear: it’s not all in on former President Donald Trump.

A collection of crypto insiders and elected officials gathered Wednesday evening to stage a forceful rejoinder to the growing narrative that the digital asset industry is fully in the Republican party’s camp ahead of this year’s US presidential election. Organizers said the streamed event, dubbed the “Crypto4Harris Town Hall,” was the result of a “grass roots” effort that came together organically.

In doing, they managed to grab the attention of those — like Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — who very well may help decide the industry’s fate in the US.

“And why are we here today?” Schumer asked in an attempt to clarify the stakes. “Because we all support Vice President Kamala Harris to be our next president, and we all believe in the future of crypto.”

Schumer went on to argue that pro-crypto legislation is key to innovation in the US. And in a moment seemingly designed to make headlines, he said that he is committed to getting something passed out of the Senate and signed into law by the end of this year.

“Crypto is here to stay no matter what,” said the senator. “So Congress must get it right.”

“There’s only one candidate running for president who’s called crypto a ‘scam,’ and that’s Donald Trump.”

Others on the call went after Trump directly, in what could be viewed as an attempt to woo the crypto constituency that had dialed into the town hall.

“There’s only one candidate running for president who’s called crypto a ‘scam,’ and that’s Donald Trump,” said North Carolina Congressman Wiley Nickel, referring to Trump’s opinion on bitcoin before a recent 180. “Donald Trump is just totally full of shit.”

The multiple Democratic Representatives and Senators on the call were joined by pro-crypto businesspeople, all making the same case: Harris is better suited to advance the industry in the US than Trump, and Republicans aren’t crypto’s best bet.

“Republicans couldn’t care less, they just want to see the bitcoin maxis get richer.”

Justin Slaughter, the VP of regulatory affairs at the crypto-investment company Paradigm, made the industry’s case for Harris. “I continue to believe that crypto represents Democratic and progressive values,” said Slaughter. “We’re long overdue for a reset,” he added, arguing that Harris is well positioned to move past what the industry views as the Biden Admin’s anti-crypto stance.

“Supporting crypto is not about supporting the bags of elite bitcoin maxis,” said Mark Cuban, using a slang term to derisively refer to folks who argue that the original cryptocurrency will win out to the exclusion of all others. “Republicans couldn’t care less, they just want to see the bitcoin maxis get richer.”

If the goal of Wednesday’s town hall was to convince single-issue crypto voters and industry insiders that Democrats generally and Harris specifically are a better option than their Republican counterparts, then the Crypto4Harris organizers have their work cut out for them.

Last month, the Republican party added supporting crypto to its official party platform.

Still, Crypto4Harris’ message likely didn’t fall on deaf ears. Yesterday, before the town hall kicked off, NBC News reported that the pro-crypto PAC Fairshake planned to spend $3 million in support of two Democratic Senate candidates this fall.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

5/15/26

Bitcoin and crypto industry can’t hold CLARITY Act bump as it heads to Senate

While bitcoin, Coinbase, Circle, and Strategy all gained right after the CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee, the momentum reversed on Friday and crypto slumped.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

What had happened was

5/14/26

We talked to the man who says Claude helped recover $400,000 worth of bitcoin locked in wallet for over a decade

“I was taking pictures of school notebooks and sent them to Claude, trying everything to piece anything together. I also said how I make passwords. I gave Claude context,” X user Cprkrn told us.

Sage D. Young5/14/26

Crypto IPOs hit pause as “appetite has been sold to AI”

The rule of three means we can now declare 2026 will not be the year of crypto IPOs:

Ethereum development firm Consenys,
Security hardware company Ledger,
And crypto exchange Kraken are pausing plans to go public, according to reports from CoinDesk.

The companies have delayed their IPOs due to tough market conditions, the report said, including declined trading volume in digital assets, weak price performance of tokens, and investor interest in other sectors.

Kay Kyeongsik Woo, the founder of blockchain ride-hailing application Tada, told Sherwood News, “The market is cooled down and investors’ appetite has been sold to AI.”

Just today, AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems went public and is this year’s largest IPO so far, and investors are excited about potential IPOs for OpenAI and Anthropic as their valuations soar.

“It’s a fair decision on behalf of all the crypto firms,” according to Kairos Research cofounder Ian Unsworth. “For one thing, they will ultimately be dwarfed by some of the other massive IPOs coming up.”

Unsworth also pointed to how the CLARITY Act, if passed, could be a strong tailwind for these companies. “A better regulatory environment could make these companies more appealing to potential investors,” he said.

Consensys, Ledger, and Kraken did not confirm to Sherwood if they had put their IPO plans on hold. A Consensys spokesperson told Sherwood, “As a matter of policy, we do not comment on market speculation,” while a Ledger representative declined to comment on the story.

Meanwhile, Lauren Post, Kraken’s vice president of corporate communications, told Sherwood that the company did not put out any public statements on freezing IPO plans.

Sage D. Young5/13/26

XRP tops 24-hour chart on South Korean crypto exchange

XRP is among South Korea’s favorite coins.

In the last 24 hours, XRP saw the highest trading volume on South Korean exchange Upbit at over $105.3 million, a figure exceeding bitcoin’s $102.6 million, ethereum’s $62.9 million, and dogecoin’s $27.7 million, data from CoinGecko shows.

Meanwhile, spot XRP ETFs saw $5.3 million worth of inflows on Tuesday, bringing monthly inflows to more than $65.3 million, according to SoSoValue.

The activity has not, however, translated into positive momentum for the token, with XRP remaining flat at the $1.43 level in the period.

Prediction market-implied odds of XRP rising above $1.50 in May (a level that hasn’t been surpassed in over two months) now stand at 70%, up from as low as 9% at the start of the week.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

XRP returning to Upbit’s leadership position in trading volume follows the news earlier this week that Ripple’s prime brokerage unit secured a $200 million debt facility from global investment management firm Neuberger Berman to aid with the unit’s margin financing solutions.

Elsewhere, the XRP Ledger notched a new record of 332,000 addresses holding at least 10,000 tokens, worth $14,300, per data analytics platform Santiment. “Historically, rising numbers of mid-to-large wallets suggest increasing conviction from investors who are less focused on short-term price swings and more interested in long-term positioning,” Santiment posted Tuesday night on X.

“This is especially notable because XRP has spent much of 2026 trading below previous highs, meaning many holders appear willing to accumulate during fear rather than chase momentum,” Santiment added.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

5/13/26

CLARITY Act could help reshape bitcoin’s narrative for second half of 2026

“Thursday isn’t the finish line, it’s the gate. A clean markup is what tells institutional capital it’s safe to come off the sidelines.”